The Hyundai driver was 10s off the pace on his first pass of the Monte Carlo Rally shakedown, but that was due to him trying the studded tires on bone-dry asphalt as snow and ice is expected later in the week.
However footage on social media showed the Belgian hitting a bank on his second run, with the right-front wheel hanging off his car.
It transpired that a driveshaft broke earlier on the 2.6-mile stage, and that’s what led to his impact with the bank.
“It was a chaotic start for us,” Neuville told DirtFish. “We had a driveshaft issue at the beginning of the stage. While we were driving slowly, trying to just drive out of the stage, we had a suspension failure. Caused or not by the driveshaft, I don’t know yet. I need to speak to the team, they are analyzing. Maybe the driveshaft started to flap and it cut the wishbone, so we need to find out.
“Obviously the footage is very visible. We are driving slowly and suddenly the car pulls me into the ditch. So it came a bit of a surprise.”
Neuville will be relieved this problem occurred in a non-competitive section of the rally
Speaking to DirtFish, Hyundai sporting director Andrew Wheatley confirmed the team was investigating the issue.
“We’re not 100% [sure], there’s still an investigation ongoing, but at the moment it looks like a driveshaft broke and after the driveshaft broke he got pulled into the ditch,” Wheatley said.
“It’s definitely not the way to start the year. They got a chance to get back into the program and do the bits that they needed for the shakedown, so hopefully they can start the rally confident.”
Asked if the failure was a repeat problem from the past, Wheatley admitted: “That I don’t know. That’s where the investigation is at the moment and that’s going to take a little time to understand.
“Obviously we only got the parts back about 50 minutes ago, because they changed the parts out on the road. So it’s a bit early to be understanding what’s going on.
“But for sure, it’s something that we’ve been testing. We had a problem with it and we’ve been doing quite a lot of work to try and make it right.
“So this is suboptimal, [but] I can’t say too much until we know what the actual results are.”
